Lawyers to handle Florida property defaults

12:27 AM,
May 10, 2013

Written by

Jackie Winchester
jwinchester@news-press.com

The Florida Supreme Court is signing off on a plan to use lawyers - not judges - to handle hundreds of thousands of foreclosure cases.

Justices on Thursday issued an order that will allow chief judges across the state to use "general magistrates" to process the nearly 400,000 pending home foreclosures. More than 9,000 cases are backlogged in Lee County, according to court records.

The Supreme Court's move was quickly criticized by a lawyer representing homeowners. Matthew Weidner called it an "attack on consumers" who deserve to have their cases heard by judges who are responsible to ...